Contact Us

Feel free to chat up any of the Factions staff in-game, or just email CupcakeTrap. I’ve also set up a simple feedback form that you can use to send us messages. Click here to contact Factions staff directly.

Q&A

If you authorize us to share your question publicly, we may answer publicly here.

Re: Noxus in the fifth arc

Q: Adding in noxus for the next faction would be very easy to justify lore wise- one last ditch effort to find a place for their refugees. Maybe specify that if they fall too negative at any point they will be knocked out of the storyline (maybe have a tournament to see if it happens when they fall too negative).
—Psykohamster, 2014/03/25

A: Given that we’ve had so much Noxus vs. Ionia lately, I’m concerned that the gameplay would feel rather stale if we put them back in so soon. (Of course, if Ionian Summoners use their arc-winning vote to select Noxus as a third faction, I wouldn’t veto it or anything; it’s up to them.) However, story-wise, I would love to see some Beyond the Battlefield or Summoner’s Herald submissions that continue the story of the Noxian refugees.
—CupcakeTrap, 2014/03/26

Re: Piltover/Bandle City Alliance

Q: This is a formal request written to the council by the summoner Mx’zm in representation of Piltover to unite the two factions of both the City of Progress and the City of Yordles. Not only from a lore connection via champions and goals, but as you can clearly see from the “”Balance of Power”” chart, both the factions are currently being crushed by the two champion pools of the other factions.

This unity would prove helpful by mending weaknesses that propel both teams towards defeat each game. I hate for it to come to this, but I see it as the only option. Piltover, at this time, lacks a true support and sustain not to mention a selection of true tanks. Bruisers can only work for so long.

I thank the council for reading my request and I hope that they consider it with hopes to even out the fields of justice.

I wish you all a good day that leads a brighter tomorrow.”
—Mixizm, 2014/04/04

A: I think the Hextech Revolution arc is interesting in that some factions have some common ground, and indeed part of the reason for the very limited starting rosters is the significant overlap in Champion lists. I think that’s a space we should explore, perhaps through interactive lore events and special tournaments. However, I don’t think that a full and complete merger of two factions would be a good idea, at least not at the moment. Not only would it collapse part of the storyline, but it would make one roster drastically larger than the others.

It is indeed the case that the starting rosters for this arc are quite limited. That’s intentional: we want people to really explore the core gameplay for each faction. Soon, though, there are going to be more opportunities for factions to decide which champs they want to add in.
—CupcakeTrap, 2014/04/07

Re: Rosters too small

Q: I’m finding Factions to be rather unwelcoming and difficult to get into. Due to limited champion pools of newer players like myself, choosing a faction to participate in is harmful to players depending on luck. I picked Demacia this arc because I had a few decent champions in their line-up. However, due to all the extra’s added to Bandle City and so few to Demacia, I am regretting my faction choice. New players will always have a limited champion pool, but allowing a larger pool for each faction in an arc and being more up-front about add-ons early in the arc would make this a much more enjoyable experience. Also I think several champions are just being left out. Several of my favorite champions are not listed having ties to any faction, so I can never expect to get to play them. Where’s Nidalee? Where’s Jax? Where’s Kayle? What about adding a list of “”Institute of War”” champions summon-able by any faction (preferably filled with 450-1350 ip champions)? I just want to feel like I can help support my faction of choice and have fun playing games, not hinder them with my presence and poor champion pool.

TL;DR: Please re-look over champion faction divisions to allow more players to participate, and not feel like a burden. Or, add some non-faction champions to an “”Institute of War”” champion pool usable by any faction (preferably filled with low ip and popular champions)(ei: Kayle, Jax, Soraka, etc).”

A: First off, you really shouldn’t feel guilty over not playing at your usual level in Factions. It’s a quirky, unusual game mode that centers around unusual situations. It’s also meant to be mostly about funtimes, and a break from the stress of Elo grinding. View the games as (often somewhat silly) stories playing out rather than a test of your personal worth. Factions will never be as “fair” or “balanced” as solo queue, for a long list of reasons. It’s not designed as a hardcore competitive mode, and making it into one would, IMO, clash with the elements that make it fun and different.

I’ve been pushing to add more Champions to the rosters as we get deeper into the storyline. However, not only do tenuous Champion additions provoke heckling, but (more importantly) I think the hecklers have a point. Both thematically and in terms of gameplay, Factions is about limited, coherent rosters. It’s also secondarily about trying out new Champions: I main Veigar, who so far has not yet appeared in Factions, but I take Factions as an opportunity to try out some new Champions and work on overall gameplay strategy.

I’m pretty firmly against the idea of a common grab-bag of “Institute” Champions, because even a half dozen such Champions could radically undermine the thematic and gameplay coherence of the factions. It’d feel a lot more like a pickup solo queue game. Let’s say that pool contained a couple tanks. Suddenly, Zaun’s identity as “tanktown” collapses, and Piltover stops being a poke comp.

Your comments do get me thinking, though, about under what circumstances such a common Champion pool could work. My initial thought is that rather than being a “grab-bag”, it would have to be a thematically coherent set of Champions tied in with the arc, sort of like what we’re doing with Shurima here, except in the form of “common” Champions that never declare for a faction. I’m not sold on the idea, though. For example, you bring up the issue of Champion ownership. If we had a common pool of Champions, there might be a race in Champion select to snatch up the strongest Champions before the other team. This would significantly disadvantage Summoners who don’t own those Champions. Like you say, we could go with cheap “common” Champions, but this would add another criterion we’d have to satisfy in selecting these Champions. It’s something I’ll keep in mind, but I hope this explanation helps to convey the difficulties involved.

I’ve also considered having essentially “frozen” rosters for an arc: launch a big roster for each faction and make few or no roster changes post-launch. However, I think there are some real advantages to evolving rosters that start small and grow. First, small starting rosters help each faction find their “identity” quickly: tanky, pokey, magey, or what-have-you. Second, I think votes for new Champions add an interesting meta-strategy component, as the factions debate among themselves what their faction most needs. Finally, it provides some nice hooks for story material.

Anyway, I hope this explains a little more of the situation. I appreciate the feedback, which has given me some new ideas.

—CupcakeTrap, 2014/06/02

Disconnects

Q: I dunno when we changed the rule regarding DC’s, and I would have appreciated there being some sort of vote by way of the community if it was going to happen. That asides, this new rule is screwing up our community because there’s been a bunch of suspicious dc’s that nobody can prove anything about that are getting one-sided looking games preemptively cancelled. The old rule absolutely needs to be reestablished, because I for one hate seeing community members taking jabs at each other because nobody can tell whether a dc is legit or not and people want to abuse the system in a for fun game mode.

Disconnects: If someone disconnects, use the pause feature. If someone d/cs and does not return within 5 minutes, remake the game. Please contact staff to let them know about the d/c, and why it happened.

were put in place at least a month or two ago. It sounds like this is starting to become an issue. I can think of a few types of options for dealing with this, which I’ll discuss with staff and the community:

Option One: Revert to the old point-adjust modifier. One problem with this option is that 4v5s are not a lot of fun. It also does “soften” the impact of a leaver, providing some incentive to disconnect. Finally, it requires a judgment call about the significance of the leave, e.g. when it happened.

Option Two: A side with a d/c forfeits the match after using up its 5 minutes of pause time. This would presumably eliminate any incentive to dodge, but is a harsh rule.

Option Three: Retain the current rule, but add reporting of leavers to the match submission form. Apply restrictions to frequent leavers. The problem here is that this is something of a halfway solution.

Since discussion will take some time, and it sounds like this is a serious problem at the moment, I’m announcing an interim rule change.

New Rule: If someone disconnects, their team must use the pause feature. Each team has up to 5 minutes of pause time per match. If a team runs out of pause time and the disconnected player has not returned, that team automatically forfeits the match. The “winning” team has the responsibility for reporting these matches. The winning team will gain only half points from the match, but the forfeiting team will lose the full amount. The leave should be described in the match submission report. This is a very harsh rule which may lead to unfair results. We are trying to address two problems here. First, we do not want players on a losing team to game the system by deliberately disconnecting. Second, we do not want players to feel obligated to struggle through a 4v5: we’d rather have the team take the loss, report the leave, and start a new match.

We will be compiling a list of reported leaves and posting it up for reference. If your name is on the list, you can contact us about explaining what happened and adding a note.

This is an interim rule while staff investigates a report of an upsurge in disconnections. It applies to all matches begun after 1:00 p.m. (Pacific time) on June 18, 2014. We hope to replace it with a better rule soon.

I’m sorry to hear about this trend. Thank you for reporting it to us. —CupcakeTrap, 2014/06/18